NYPD under fire for monitoring Muslim students

Updated on: February 21, 2012 / 12:30 PM
/ CBS/AP

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Yale University is objecting to the monitoring of Muslim student association websites by the New York Police Department, while Muslim leaders call for investigations and student groups at Rutgers University express outrage.

The Associated Press reported Saturday that an NYPD intelligence unit visited websites, blogs and forums of Muslim student associations at Yale and other universities.

Yale President Richard Levin says such surveillance is "antithetical to the values" of Yale and the country.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations and Rutgers University in New Jersey have called for investigations.

CBS affiliate WFSB reports the Connecticut chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is expected to join the Connecticut Civil Rights Coalition at a press conference Tuesday to urge Gov. Dannel Malloy to protect the rights of Muslim students in the state.

An NYPD spokesman says police wanted to get a better handle on what was occurring at student associations. He cited 12 people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the United States and abroad who had once been members of Muslim student associations.

The New York Police Department has defended its investigation of Muslim student associations at universities across the northeast, which reportedly saw the NYPD reach out to colleges hundreds of miles from the city.

While there is extensive federal oversight of investigations by the FBI and the CIA, that is not the case with the NYPD's own counterterrorism unit.